Apparently there has been a major debate within the Tolkien fan community for years now about whether or not balrogs have wings.

I haven’t heard anything this ridiculous since the so-called “debate” over whether the second millennium ended in 1999 or 2000. There was no debate to be had – the millennium ended in 2000. It’s called math. But most people insisted on defending their misapprehension that 1999 was the right year.

Likewise, we know for a fact that Tolkien’s balrogs did not have wings, for the same reason we know Ents did not have wings – because Tolkien never said that they did.

Let me repeat that – TOLKIEN NEVER SAID BALROGS HAD WINGS.

Now, you’re probably thinking, but Erik, I remember something about wings in the epic Gandalf versus Balrog battle in The Fellowship of the Ring. But that’s based on a careless reading of the text. You see the word “wings,” and assume they must be the types of wings you’ll find on a bird or a bat.

They aren’t.

The Encyclopedia of Arda has an excellent synopsis of the debate, although they have been accused of having what wing proponents call an “anti-wing” bias. I call it a pro-fact bias.

The evidence

In The Lord of the Rings, there are seven references to balrogs; three in Fellowship, two in Towers, and two in the Appendices. There are 16 mentions in The Silmarillion, not counting the glossary. Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs, makes one appearance in Unfinished Tales. And in the twelve volumes of The History of Middle Earth, the word “balrog” is used 314 times. This suggests that HOME would be a great source of information about balrogs, but that’s not the case.

Despite all these references, there are only three places in the collected writings where “wings” are mentioned in connection with a balrog, and only one of those is canon. I speak of course of The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 5, “The Bridge of Khazad-dûm.”

The Balrog reached the bridge. Gandalf stood in the middle of the span, leaning on the staff in his left hand, but in his other hand Glamdring gleamed, cold and white. His enemy halted again, facing him, and the shadow about it reached out like two vast wings. It raised the whip, and the thongs whined and cracked. Fire came from its nostrils. But Gandalf stood firm.

“You cannot pass,” he said. The orcs stood still, and a dead silence fell. “I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass.”

The Balrog made no answer. The fire in it seemed to die, but the darkness grew. It stepped forward slowly on to the bridge, and suddenly it drew itself up to a great height, and its wings were spread from wall to wall; but still Gandalf could be seen, glimmering in the gloom; he seemed small, and altogether alone: grey and bent, like a wizened tree before the onset of a storm. [emphasis mine]

A balrog is a creature of fire and shadow, both of which are supernatural in origin. From Quenta Silmarillion, Chapter 3: “Of the Coming of the Elves and the Captivity of Melkor”:

…their hearts were of fire, but they were cloaked in darkness, and terror went before them..

The Encyclopedia of Arda says this about the shadow:

Where Balrogs are concerned, their ‘shadow’ isn’t just a lack of light, but a region of darkness that they carry around with them. Exactly what its qualities are is a debatable point, but it can certainly flow into different shapes. These shadow-shapes, in fact, form the beginning of the whole debate.

Tolkien describes the shadow as being “like two vast wings.” Then the “darkness grew” and “its wings were spread from wall to wall.” Wings of darkness, not wings like a bat or a bird or a fairy.

This passage is the basis for the belief in winged balrogs. But there’s no ambiguity here. Only a child or an otherwise unsophisticated reader might interpret Tolkien to mean the balrog had bird or bat wings. This is especially true when we see that the Balrog does not, in fact, ever fly.

But before we move on to balrog flightlessness, let’s look at the other two references to balrogs and wings.

This is from HOME volume 7: The Treason of Isengard. Christopher Tolkien is comparing two early drafts of Fellowship.

In B it is said only that the Balrog ‘stood facing him’: in C ‘the Balrog halted facing him, and the shadow about him reached out like great wings‘.(17) Immediately afterwards, where in FR the Balrog drew itself up to a great height, and its wings were spread from wall to wall‘, neither B nor C has the words ‘to a great height’ nor speaks of the ‘wings’.

This is almost identical to the published version. The spread “wings” are in fact just two great areas of darkness that spread out from the sides of the balrog.

This final reference is one of the favorites of the pro-wing crowd. It’s from HOME volume 10: Morgoth’s Ring.

Far beneath the halls of Angband, in vaults to which the Valar in the haste of their assault had not descended, the Balrogs lurked still, awaiting ever the return of their lord. Swiftly they arose, and they passed with winged speed over Hithlum, and they came to Lammoth as a tempest of fire.

This could go either way. “Winged speed” could mean speeding through the air with one’s wings; or it could mean speeding along the ground at a tremendous speed, as if one had wings. Taken out of context, it could mean either thing.

But let’s take it in context, shall we?

Balrogs never fly

By the end of his life, as Tolkien was struggling to finish a version of The Silmarillion fit for publication, the Professor had decided that balrogs were corrupt Maiar in the service of Morgoth. This implies that, like Morgoth and Sauron and the Valar, balrogs were essentially spiritual beings that could change shape at will and fly if they so wished.

But we know that when certain Valar and Maiar assumed physical form, they became trapped in those forms. This happened to both Melkor and Sauron, who over time lost the ability to take any form they wished. We know that creatures like Ents and Eagles were “spirits” placed in material bodies, and these spirits may have been Maiar. Gandalf is without a doubt a Maia, and he could neither change form nor fly.

Nowhere in the attested writings do balrogs change shape, except to manipulate their cloak or “wings” of darkness. In fact, Tolkien does describe the physical form of the balrog after its fire is quenched by the waters deep beneath Moria. “His fire was quenched, but now he was a thing of slime, stronger than a strangling snake,” Gandalf tells us in Book 3, Chapter 5 of The Two Towers.

Now, I can’t prove a negative. But in this case, absence of evidence is evidence of absence. There is never a mention of balrog shapeshifting anywhere in the legendarium.

And ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE, except for the ambiguous reference to “winged speed,” do balrogs ever fly, even when it would be of great benefit to them to do so. Dragons fly, Morgoth flies, even Lúthien Tinúviel flies. Yet balrogs never do. This would be very odd behavior for a winged creature.

In fact, when they hide, balrogs always do so underground, a strange habit for an aerial creature. Durin’s Bane hides deep beneath the Misty Mountains, as we know. And in Quenta chapter 24, “Of the Voyage of Eárendil and the War of Wrath”:

The Balrogs were destroyed, save some few that fled and hid themselves in caverns inaccessible at the roots of the earth; and the uncounted legions of the Orcs perished like straw in a great fire, or were swept like shrivelled leaves before a burning wind.

Some have suggested that balrogs are some kind of flightless bird, like a penguin. This is so dumb, I don’t even know how to respond. We’ll ignore the evolutionary argument against this, since balrogs did not evolve, but were created by Morgoth out of rebel Maiar. (Tolkien was not a creationist, and despite being devoutly Catholic, he accepted evolution as a fact.) But if anyone, anywhere can give any type of explanation why Tolkien, or his proxy Morgoth Bauglir, would create flightless winged balrogs, please let me know.

Pro-wing apologists have decidedly unsatisfactory answers to these colossal gaping holes in their argument. This guy says the balrog could change shape, but chose not to do so; that it could have flown across the chasm in Moria, but chose to fall instead. Sure.

The author even goes on to call the information in The Silmarillion “useless,” since it doesn’t back up his theory. Well, if we’re going to throw out the published canon, let’s just ditch everything Tolkien ever wrote. The (very cool, if inaccurate) Jackson balrog has flaming bat wings, and the Bakshi version looks like Ron Perlman from “Beauty and the Beast” with ridiculous wings like a steampunk ornithopter. Let’s consider these “canon,” so the pro-wing loonies can finally have their way.

Or not.

The question here is, what did Tolkien intend? Flying balrogs or terrestrial ones? All we have to work from is his writings, and those are unambiguous. Balrogs don’t have wings.

19 Comments

Seems like a really long angry post- it’s a shame you are wrong after all that work. You yourself said they are “Wings of darkness, not wings of a bat or a bird or a fairy.” So even you who claim them not to be wings still can’t describe the objects in question without using the word wings. Tolkien wrote wings and meant wings regardless of a Balrog’s capability of flight. And so what of they don’t fly- they are the emus of middle earth. Consider this- Gandalf has a penis even though it is never mentioned nor used, no one would refute that he has one (except maybe you). Gandalf’s penis is as much a fact as a Balrog’s shadow wings, except there is more evidence in the case of the Balrog.

Sigh. Libraries have wings — I suppose you would compare them to Emus.

On 09.02.10 Eliana wrote these pithy words:

Yes, and mountains, according to Tolkien’s writings , frequently are expressed as ‘arms’, meaning their outlying lower regions. That doesn’t mean that Middle Earth mountains have real arms, hey! Hello, what’s happened to the understanding of metaphor? Please, let’s understand this. If a balrog had wings and could fly, the whole history of Middle Earth would have been completely different, and perhaps quite short, with something like a nuclear holocost to finish it off. Tolkien’s invention of the balrog is to demonstrate another manifestation of evil, as we are told, ancient, cunning and powerful. But without wings.

On 09.06.10 solecize wrote these pithy words:

So a Balrog has the wings of a library hunh? Tolkien wanted us to think of the balrog as being cloaked in darkness with wings of shadow. So tell me if you had to visually represent something described as having wings of shadow how would you draw it? It is preposterous to expect people to think of something other than wings of shadow when that is what was described. The wings don’t have to function in any way other than to give us a visual impression, but if you have to render that impression it’s just dumb to expect “not wings” of shadow. The non-wingers can’t even describe the object of discussion without using the word wings, and in doing so go against the actual writing.

On 09.08.10 Eliana wrote these pithy words:

I believe the phrase ‘wings of shadow’ is written and intended metaphorically speaking, not actual wings, but wing-like shadows stretching out and up behind the Balrog. so we all actually agree. But flying Balrogs, I don’t think so.

[…] (And let’s be clear – whatever some idiots on the Internet may tell you, Tolkien never wrote that Balrogs had wings. Not once. Not ever. And this Balrog’s plummet to the deepest pits of Moria 14 seconds later helps to belie the ridiculous Balrog Wing Hypothesis.) […]

[…] generates more pages of academic and fan speculation than even the absurd Balrog Wing Controversy. Here’s a quick rundown of what we do know about this enigmatic and mildly annoying literary […]

On 02.10.11 David Pirtle wrote these pithy words:

When he says ‘shadow about it reached out like two vast wings’ it means just what it says. The Balrog was cloaked in shadow, not cloaked in wings. When it entered the cavern it spread its shadow out on either side to fill the room, and Tolkien used the simile ‘like two vast wings’ simply meaning that the shadow spread out from either side of the middle (kind of like the wings of a library, that is to say a feature projecting out in one direction from the center structure, according to websters). Balrogs did not have physical wings. Balrogs did not fly. In point of fact balrogs seem to die every time they are tossed from mountain tops, which is strange behavior for a winged being. They were cloaked in shadow, and in one instance a balrog spread that shadow out to fill a room, and suddenly a really stupid controversy is born.

[…] any fear towards in the whole story. It’s clad in a 20-foot-tall fiery horned demon body with penguin wings, and carries a long fiery […]

On 11.29.12 solecize wrote these pithy words:

I’m back. And the Balrog did have wings… of shadow. Just as Gandalf’s “a smell like gunpowder” line in the hobbit gives us a physical impression of gunpowder-like magic/ spell/ trick (flash, smell and dead goblins) the Balrog’s wings of shadow is designed to make us imagine wings made of shadow. Balrog flight is irrelevant to the look of it’s wings of shadow, just as it is irrelevant that Gandalf has some form of magic that is like gun powder, that it may actually be gun powder, or may be something else entirely. Darkness that reaches out physically doesn’t exist- except in fantasy, so to describe it why not use the word wings- in fact why not use it twice in the same passage.

Shadow in the world of Tolkien is very different from what the word means in our reality. He uses it like it is a physical manifestation. In Middle Earth there are lands/realms of shadow where beings actually exist- they are not metaphorical beings of shadow. In this context I think it is perfectly reasonable to think that the shadow wings reaching out from arguably one of the darkest spirits in Middle Earth have a physical presence of mystical shadow. Otherwise Tolkien was just describing a trick of the light, which to me is a much more mundane treatment. Tolkien called them wings, so I feel pretty safe calling them wings as well regardless of flight status.

On 11.29.12 solecize wrote these pithy words:

Also those that take a hard line approach of if you take one simile as fact means that all metaphors have to be taken as fact is silly. Saying that I have to believe gandalf can fly because I believe in shadow wings is just as ridiculous as saying that none of Tolkien’s writing is metaphor and that every use of the word fly really means run- even when the eagles do it.

Sometimes metaphors can have the exact same, or very similar physical manifestation as an actual item- so much so it becomes a deafacto name for the item. The wings of a stingray carried it through the water. The arms of the mountain held them high. The roof of the cave kept them dry. Is the roof of a cave actually a roof? I could argue about shingles and gables and any number of other meaningless roof-related and unrelated terms, but the fact remains that I am supposed to imagine the top part of the cave as a roof.

The arms of the mountain on the other hand is obviously stronger metaphor with a weaker physical connection. I am writinging about a mountain and giving it an aspect of human limbs, but people and mountains don’t have much in common. Roofs and caves are structural so they have more in common. Finally we have the wings of the stingray- are they wings? Can you tell me what they are without looking up their technical name? The point is there is obvious metaphor, subtle metaphor and metaphor that is so subtle it is describing something that it physically mimics. So much so that there is no better term. I think in the case of balrog shadow it is so physically like wings that there is no better word. What do you call the mystical shadow that hangs off a Balrog? Maybe Tolkien should have written cape of shadow, or wrapped in shadow, but he didn’t- he wrote wings- twice, because he wings are what he wanted to portray. The fact that Tolkien and everyone on either side of the debate calls them wings seems like a pretty strong vote for wings.

On 04.25.14 Caleb wrote these pithy words:

Hey supporting the wingless theory, in the books Eomer names Aragorn “wingfoot” because how fast he ran after Merry and Pippin. Also in the beginning of the ROTK Gandalf and Pippin are riding Shadowfax which if I remember correctly says that the horse was running so fast it was like he had wings. We know that shadowfax was not a pegasus, Aragorn did not have wings. Examples of Tolkien using “wings” as allegory for other flightless characters.

“Hey man, does the Balrog have wings?” – I will always remember that one, great stuff from when the book was just beginning to get a fandom in America, which as far as phone-calls to England go, is in a different time zone. :D
But I am here for a different reason, which is to get this discussion evolving towards the future and expanded perception of the bigger picture. You have to look at all these things, controversies, etc, as messages and metaphors in themselves.
So whenever you see a “CAT”, Lion, or other feline creature, you must think of “GETAS”, the Fathers of the Fathers of Men (etc). They are born of Geea (*Gaya), the Black Land, and the language is sometimes called “Gaelic”.
Likewise when you see “WINGS”, you must think of “ability to enter different dimensions”. These are all code-words in fantasy. (While those who fly can enter the heavens, those who fly “terrestrially” are able to access the truth about incarnated reality).
Btw, Gandalf does have a penis and as you can see from these writings, he did use it. It’s just veiled by all sorts of metaphors (“the fire was quenched but it remained like a strong snake!” ooh…), because the events needed to get through bypassing the author’s own editing – he saw Elves, even some High Elves as his ideal, which was problematic. Even though, it’s kinda obvious he had a big crush on the King of the World, so he would be fine.

Part 2.
Balrogs are the true Valar (Balli, vs. Valah/Welsh) because they are “of the Dark Fire” MA’AT, the Egyptian goddess of Balance found in the human heart (this refers to the Earth Axis as it used to be, before the great Disaster when “many perished”). They are those who kept with Ilúvatar’s plan (love & joy), and had to later wear masks of evil in order to re-set the balance of the world. Ilúvatar himself, the true God, was represented by the Burning Mountain, being a “soul smith”. Tolkien says the Music is revealed in the history of Mankind. As follows: First he made the Holy Ones, and invested most of his soul in Melkor. (I’m still studying the implications of this part). Then he made the Elves, whom some Valar took away from their appointed places between light & dark, and took them to light-filled Valinor, where they were called “Higher” because of this act. Then he revealed Men, whom the High Elves of the Valar organized once again into “higher and lesser races” (according to their imbalanced idea of who’s better). Then FINALLY, he made Hobbits (it means “Slave Elves”), who appear in the LOTR tale as being the strongest, unlikely to “fade”, pulling everyone back together in friendship and trust. The War of the Ring was about their liberation.
So in effect, all of those “races” died out, and we descend from Hobbits – just like the Bible says. But the ideas of old, about there being different tribes, who are of more value than others, still remain.

On 01.27.15 Jim King wrote these pithy words:

I only recently learned of this “debate,” and find it hard to believe there is a debate. It’s obvious he didn’t mean actual wings. It’s unambiguous. I don’t know, who are these retards? I suppose some younger readers might be affected by the movie Balrog having wings, maybe, but a first reading of the book it should be obvious they don’t. Tolkien, I guess optimistically, assumed his readers would be smart enough to figure that out.

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